About Me

I'm a gay, progressive, political blogger, born & bred in New York. I started blogging because I was really pissed off at what 8 years of Bush/Cheney did to my country. This is not the America I was brought up to believe in. It's going to take a generation to repair their damage. My intent with this blog is to aggregate news from a progressive viewpoint; not to defend my beliefs or debate conservathugs on the validity of their warped worldview. I don't mind posting contrary viewpoints, as long as they don't include conspiracy theories, flat out lies, GOP talking points or racist, xenophobic & homophobic attacks. Unfortunately, I haven't had many right-leaning visitors who have left comments that fit the bill. Oh, and I like to curse. (Email link available in my profile)

6.16.2009

A graph or two are worth a thousand words. This is what a stolen election looks like in all it's pretty colors when you compare the 2005 elections results to the last weeks' election results' of candidate Mahdi Karroubi.

From FiveThirtyEight's Renard Sexton:

Karroubi was the leading reform candidate of the 2005 election cycle, in close competition with one other reform candidate, one centrist, and two conservatives, including Ahmadinejad. He won in 11 of Iran's 30 provinces, the most of any candidate that year, and was within 2 points of advancing to the run-off. It was a strong showing, which encouraged him and his backers to challenge Ahmadinejad again this year.

Polling put his candidacy at around 7-10% of the national vote this time around, with the strong incumbent expected to pull more in the first round than he did in 2005 (19.1%). Karroubi's numbers in his provinces of strength were better, with polling regularly put him at around 20-25% in his home region, with particular strength in the provinces of Lorestan, Ilam, and Khuzestan. This is where the provinicial results get fishy:

Not only did Ahmadinejad beat Karroubi in his base of support, he crushed him beyond all recognition. Karroubi's share of the vote in Lorestan was cleaved by a factor of ten, and in only two other of the provinces did he break above 1%. Even with a consolidation of conservative support, and possible defection of Karroubi supporters to Mousavi (who was likely perceived as the candidate more likely to win) this large of shift is hard to imagine.

A graph or two are worth a thousand words. This is what a stolen election looks like in all it's pretty colors when you compare the 2005 elections results to the last weeks' election results' of candidate Mahdi Karroubi.

From FiveThirtyEight's Renard Sexton:

Karroubi was the leading reform candidate of the 2005 election cycle, in close competition with one other reform candidate, one centrist, and two conservatives, including Ahmadinejad. He won in 11 of Iran's 30 provinces, the most of any candidate that year, and was within 2 points of advancing to the run-off. It was a strong showing, which encouraged him and his backers to challenge Ahmadinejad again this year.

Polling put his candidacy at around 7-10% of the national vote this time around, with the strong incumbent expected to pull more in the first round than he did in 2005 (19.1%). Karroubi's numbers in his provinces of strength were better, with polling regularly put him at around 20-25% in his home region, with particular strength in the provinces of Lorestan, Ilam, and Khuzestan. This is where the provinicial results get fishy:

Not only did Ahmadinejad beat Karroubi in his base of support, he crushed him beyond all recognition. Karroubi's share of the vote in Lorestan was cleaved by a factor of ten, and in only two other of the provinces did he break above 1%. Even with a consolidation of conservative support, and possible defection of Karroubi supporters to Mousavi (who was likely perceived as the candidate more likely to win) this large of shift is hard to imagine.